Comment by Shorel
9 hours ago
Anyone who mentions: "the soap opera effect" is someone who used to watch soap operas. The reason they dislike it, is their own bad taste.
I like how it looks because it is "high quality videogame effect" for me. 60 hz, 120hz, 144hz, you only get this on a good videogame setup.
Just because someone has different taste doesn't make it bad taste. Books have lower resolution still, and they evoke far greater imaginative leaps. For me, the magic lies in what is not shown; it helps aid the suspension of disbelief by requiring you imagination to do more work filling in the gaps.
I'm an avid video game player, and while FPS and sports-adjacent games demand high framerates, I'm perfectly happy turning my render rates down to 40Hz or 30Hz on many games simply to conserve power. I generally prefer my own brain's antialiasing, I guess.
books have infinite resolution thanks to AI decompression filter
It is a well-known description for what each brand calls something different. As I wait in a physiotherapist office I am being subjected to a soap opera against my will. Many will have seen snippets of The Bold and the Beautiful without watching a single episode, but enough to know that it looks 'different'.
The Godfather in 144hz with DNR and motion smoothing, just like Scorsese intended.
My counterargument is this: I would love if Bruce Lee was filmed at 144hz.
He had been told to slow down because 24hz simply could not capture his fast movements.
At 144hz, we would be able to better appreciate his abilities.
24fps was not chosen from technical merit but because it was the lowest frame rate that most people didn't see flicker.
That choice was made long before Scorsese made The Godfather; and so has virtually every other movie made over the past century.
Real artists understand the limits of the medium they're working in and shape their creations to exist within it. So even if there was no artistic or technical merit in the choice to standardize on 24 FPS, the choice to standardize on 24 FPS shaped the media that came after it. Which means it's gained merit it didn't have when it was initially standardized upon.
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author's intentions for how stuff should be watched are overrated
...that being said motion interpolation is abomination
At the end of the day the viewer should get to see what they want to see. But in my case I usually want to see what the author had in mind, and I want my TV to respect that preference.
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Real high framerate is one thing, but the TV setting is faking it with interpolation. There's not really a good reason to do this, it's trickery to deceive you. Recording a video at 60fps is fine, but that's just not what TV and movies do in reality. No one is telling you to watch something at half the intended framerate, just the actual framerate.
In principle, I agree with you.
I would vastly prefer original material at high frame rates instead of interpolation.
But I remember the backslash against “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” because it was filmed at 48 Hz, and that makes me think that people dislike high frame rate content no matter the source, so my comment also covers these cases.
Also, because of that public response, we don't have more content actually filmed at high frame rates =)
I wanted to like The Hobbit in 48, but it really didn't work for me. It made everything look fake, from the effects to the acting. I lost suspension of disbelief. If we want high frame rate to be a thing, then filmmakers need to figure out a way to direct that looks plausible at a more realistic speed, and that probably means less theatrics.
I disliked the effect (of an unfamiliar TV’s postprocessing) without calling it that and without ever having seen a soap opera. What’s your analysis, doc?
Another commenter said something that resonated with me - it feels too real, loses the magic.
Watch cartoons if you don't want 'real'. Those made by Disney are said to be 'magic'.
Sorry for being snarky. It's just that I have large difficulties enjoying 24 fps pan shots and action scenes. It's like watching a slide show to me. I'm rather annoyed that the tech hasn't made any progress in this regard, because viewers and makers want to cling on to the magic/dream-like experiences they had in their formative years.
Films use cheap set dec and materials. They use lighting and makeup tricks.
If you watch at a higher frame rate, the mistakes become obvious rather than melting into the frames. Humans look plastic and fake.
The people that are masters of light and photography make intentional choices for a reason.
You can cook your steak well done if you like, but that's not how you're supposed to eat it.
A steak is not a burger. A movie is not a sports event or video game.
The choice wasn't intentional, it was forced by technology and in turn, methods were molded by technological limitation.
What next, gonna complain resolution is too high and you can see costume seams ?
The film IS the burger, you said it yourself, it shows off where the movie cheapened on things. If you want a steak you need steak framerate
> What next, gonna complain resolution is too high and you can see costume seams ?
They literally had to invent new types of makeup because HD provided more skin detail than was previously available.
It’s why you’ll find a lot of foundation marketed as “HD cream”.
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> The choice wasn't intentional,
I'm a filmmaker. Yes, it was.
> What next, gonna complain resolution is too high and you can see costume seams ?
Try playing an SNES game on CRT versus with pixel upscaling.
The art direction was chosen for the technology.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jh2ssirC1oQ
> The film IS the burger, you said it yourself, it shows off where the movie cheapened on things. If you want a steak you need steak framerate
You don't need 48fps to make a good film. You don't need a big budget either.
If you want to take a piece of art and have it look garish, you do you.
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Enter the Dragon would have been amazing if it had been filmed at 144 Hz.
The technical limitations of the past century should not define what constitutes a film.
> You can cook your steak well done if you like, but that's not how you're supposed to eat it.
Did you read an interview with the cow’s creator?
I find the rejection of higher frame rates for movies and TV shows to be baffling when people accepted color and sound being introduced which are much bigger changes.
Maybe the quality of a change matters more than its size? Just a thought.
Higher frame rates are a good change for action scenes. Hell 24fps is notorious for causing flickering during horizontal pan shots.
I call it the "British comedy effect". And it's awful, and if you like it, you're awful too, sorry to say.
It's called the soap opera effect because soap operas were shot on video tape, instead of film, to save money. It wasn't just soap operas, either. Generally, people focus on frame rate, but there are other factors, too, like how video sensors capture light across the spectrum differently than film.
wow 2008 called
I haven't thought about or noticed in nearly two decades
My eyes 100% adjusted, I like higher frame and refresh rates now
I cant believe that industry just repeated a line about how magical 24fps feels for ages and nobody questioned it, until they magically had enough storage and equipment resources to abandon it. what a coincidence